“Komsomolskaya Pravda”: “Putin compared to Peter the Great”
READ IN The Sydney Morning Herald
Ross Cameron, a former Australian MP, has published an article in The Sydney Morning Herald on the 10-year anniversary of the day Boris Yeltsin handed the reins of Russia to Vladimir Putin. "It was a good day for Russia and the world," Cameron wrote. "Putin is Russia's finest leader since Peter the Great." We found this analysis of Putin's presidency, conducted in a country so far away from Russia, rather interesting. Here are some extracts from it.
Western profiles of Putin usually begin with ''ex-KGB agent'' but that is misleading. As a spy in West Germany in the 1980s, Putin witnessed the superiority of the free market. After the 1989 revolutions, Putin moved to St Petersburg to join his friend and former university lecturer, the mayor, Anatoly Sobchak - the Milton Friedman of Russia... When Yeltsin defied Soviet tanks in Moscow in 1991, Sobchak performed the same heroic feat in St Petersburg. During those momentous days Putin resigned from the KGB to work against the Soviet coup.
Putin stayed with free-market Sobchak until 1996, when he moved to Moscow, ended the Chechen revolt and in August 1999 was appointed Yeltsin's fifth prime minister in 17 months. Four months later, Yeltsin resigned as president and, under Russia's constitution, Putin became acting president.
Putin inherited an economic catastrophe. In 1998, Russia defaulted on its foreign debt and the rouble collapsed. His first public commitment - to double the productive capacity of the Russian economy in 10 years - was met with derision, but has been fulfilled. In 2000, Russia's economy was ranked 22nd in the world - now it is seventh.
In the Putin decade foreign debt has been repaid before it fell due and international bond investors now bemoan the shortage of its public debt.
While the Soviets repressed all religious faith, Putin happily wears a cross. The Russian media may be excessively pro-Putin but only a fraction more or less than the US media have been towards President Barack Obama.
By Ivan Grachyov
